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Hauser’s niece requests vigilance in search effort

Ever since he disappeared 56 days ago, Timmy Hauser has been constantly in the thoughts of his niece, Melanie Anderson.

She is asking that others also remember her uncle, a longtime Bartlesville resident who remains missing and is now presumed to be dead — the victim of an robbery/assault in a rural area a few miles west of town.

“We need to know where he is,” said Anderson. “If he was killed, we have got to see to it that he is properly buried.”

While continuing to hope that he is still alive, Anderson said she has accepted the assessments of law enforcement officers that her 62-year-old uncle probably did not survive the attack.

“I want peace for our family, and finding him is the only thing that can make that happen,” she said.

Anderson added that Hauser is missed by all of his relatives, young and old.

“He was my uncle for 34 years and I know how bad I am feeling,” said Anderson. “The same goes for my (5-year-old) daughter.

“But I am even more concerned about it for his brother’s sake,” she added, referring to her other uncle.

Anderson said she wants to make deer hunters aware of the situation, so they might assist in looking for the body.

Hauser was last seen around 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 9 as he left the Osage Casino-Bartlesville with two acquaintances. Some of his personal effects were located the following week along a county road running north from U.S. Highway 60, approximately three miles west of the Bartlesville Airport.

In the first few days after Hauser vanished, Anderson was persistent in convincing area law enforcement agencies to look into the case of her missing uncle. She said she got little response following her early contact with officials — on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday following his disappearance.

“But, I have no ill feelings for the way things were handled — although it was frustrating at the time,” Hauser’s niece said. “Everyone is working together now.”

Anderson also played an active role in the early stages of the investigation that led to arrests of a Bartlesville man and woman who are charged with robbing Hauser on the day he went missing. Officials believe they are the two persons seen accompanying him as they exited the casino.

Rusty Boyd Petty, 40, and 28-year-old Trysta Alberta Eileen Shaffer are named in the conjoint robbery case. A Dec. 6 preliminary hearing is scheduled for the pair, who each are being held on bonds of $1 million.

Reports by the Osage County Sheriff’s Office say Shaffer and Petty both have admitted to robbing their disabled acquaintance a short time after they left the casino. They also told authorities Hauser was assaulted — first with a glass bottle and then with a tire tool — before being left at the robbery scene.